Hurricane Harvey

FIRST, here is the article Larry Elder referenced in the audio above regarding the Chicago fire: “Lessons from the Chicago Fire.” WALTER WILLIAMS gives an excellent example of the benefits of price “gouging” (supply and demand) in helping families:

…Here’s a which-is-better question for you. Suppose a hotel room rented for $79 a night prior to Hurricane Katrina’s devastation. Based on that price, an evacuating family of four might rent two adjoining rooms. When they arrive at the hotel, they find the rooms rent for $200; they decide to make do with one room. In my book, that’s wonderful. The family voluntarily opted to make a room available for another family who had to evacuate or whose home was destroyed. Demagogues will call this price-gouging, but I ask you, which is preferable: a room available at $200 or a room unavailable at $79? Rising prices get people to voluntarily economize on goods and services rendered scarcer by the disaster.

After Hurricane Katrina struck, gasoline prices shot up almost a dollar nearly overnight. Some people have been quick to call this price-gouging, particularly since wholesalers and retailers were charging the higher price for gasoline already purchased and in their tanks prior to the hurricane. The fact of business is that what a seller paid for something doesn’t necessarily determine its selling price. Put in a bit more sophisticated way: Historical costs have nothing to do with selling price. For example, suppose you maintained a 10-pound inventory of coffee in your cupboard. When I ran out, you’d occasionally sell me a pound for $2. Suppose there’s a freeze in Brazil destroying much of the coffee crop, driving coffee prices to $5 a pound. Then I come around to purchase coffee. Are you going to charge me $2 a pound, what you paid for it, or $5, what it’s going to cost you to restock your coffee inventory?

[….]

Politicians of both parties have rushed in to exploit public ignorance and emotion. Last week Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (Democrat) threatened to prosecute gas companies. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (Republican) is threatening legal action against what he called “unconscionable pricing” by hotels. Alabama Attorney General Troy King (Republican) promises to vigorously prosecute businesses that significantly increase prices during the state of emergency. The Bush administration has called for the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to look for evidence of price-gouging, and Congress plans to hold hearings on oil company “price-gouging.”

There’s an important downside to these political attacks on producers. What about the next disaster? How much sense does it make for producers to make the extra effort to provide goods and services if they know they risk prosecution for charging what might be seen as “unconscionable prices”? Politicians would serve us better by focusing their energies on tax-gouging.

Comedian Trevor Noah asks “how many once-in-a-lifetime events is it gonna take… for everyone to admit that maybe man-made climate change is real”?

Excuse me, Trevor, sneaking “man-made” into the sentence doesn’t make it true. The earth is warming, and man probably plays some part, but the earth was warming before factories and cars were even built.

The Washington Post ran the headline, “Irma and Harvey should kill any doubt that climate change is real.” But that’s absurd.

Of course climate change is real. Climate CHANGES. Always has, always will. For the past 300 years, since what’s called the “little ice age,” the globe has warmed about 3 degrees.

We humans are just not that important. Even if the Paris accord were honored by everyone, (it wouldn’t be) its PROPONENTS admit it would only have slowed warming by maybe… 2 degrees… over a century.

It does us no good to scream “man-made” every time there’s a terrible hurricane.

I wanted to UPDATE this post (the above video and description) a couple ways, with the most recent storm examined in light of history, as well as an older post making similar points.

Hurricane Florence hit as a Category 1… even though we were told this was going to be a Cat 4 or 5 disaster! REAL CLIMATE SCIENCE mentions the “missed by that much” by saying,

“’Hurricane’ Florence is passing over Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina right now, with peak wind speed in the eyewall of 60 MPH and a storm surge of just over three feet.”

Let’s play a game… North Carolina REALLY WAS hit by a category 4 hurricane in 1954:

Hurricane Florence could inflict the hardest hurricane punch North Carolina has seen in more than 60 years, with rain and wind of more than 130 mph (209 kph). North Carolina has been hit by only one other Category 4 storm since reliable record keeping began in the 1850s. That was Hurricane Hazel in 1954.

[….]

Hazel’s winds were clocked at 150 mph (240 kph) at the North Carolina coast and kept roaring inland. They were only slightly diminished by the time the storm reached Raleigh, 150 miles (240 kilometers) inland. Nineteen people died in North Carolina. The storm destroyed an estimated 15,000 buildings.

So what is the deal? We are told hurricanes and tornadoes increasing are a result of climate change. As the earth gets warmer, the weather get’s worse. Right? that is the line… EXCEPT, the weather is getting better? Does that mean then, following the logic of climate alarmists, warming is good?

As has already been noted here in the latest Green Weenie Award, the climatistas are all spun up to say that Hurricane Florence proves that catastrophic climate change is upon us and that we need to hand over our car keys to Al Gore right now. If you pay attention to extreme weather trends, you’ll know that the period between Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and last year saw no hurricanes making landfall on the continental U.S. (Sandy was a tropical storm by the time it made landfall in 2012), but that hiatus didn’t mean anything. Weather only means something when it fits the narrative.

Check out this chart, from Roger Pielke Jr, of long term hurricane landfalls on the eastern seaboard (“MH” means “major hurricanes”):

Tucker Carlson has DR. SPENCER on to discuss the politics involved in hurricanes (the experiment by Bill Nye “the science guy” being shown false can be found here at WATTS UP WITH THAT):

…weather, especially tornadoes and hurricanes have lessened over the years. In other words, if Michael Grunwald (the author of the Time article) says weird weather is a indicator, an evidence for, that warming weather is something we should be fearful of and act on, what is normalizing weather and no warming suppose to indicate… OTHER THAN the whole premise of the article in a major magazine is undermined.

The 2013 hurricane season just ended as one of the five quietest years since 1960. But don’t expect anyone who pointed to last year’s hurricanes as “proof” of the need to act against global warming to apologize; the warmists don’t work that way.

Warmist claims of a severe increase in hurricane activity go back to 2005 and Hurricane Katrina. The cover of Al Gore’s 2009 book, “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis,” even features a satellite image of the globe with four major hurricanes superimposed.

Yet the evidence to the contrary was there all along. Back in 2005 I and others reviewed the entire hurricane record, which goes back over a century, and found no increase of any kind. Yes, we sometimes get bad storms — but no more frequently now than in the past. The advocates simply ignored that evidence — then repeated their false claims after Hurricane Sandy last year.

And the media play along. For example, it somehow wasn’t front-page news that committed believers in man-made global warming recently admitted there’s been no surface global warming for well over a decade and maybe none for decades more. Nor did we see warmists conceding that their explanation is essentially a confession that the previous warming may not have been man-made at all.

That admission came in a new paper by prominent warmists in the peer-reviewed journal Climate Dynamics. They not only conceded that average global surface temperatures stopped warming a full 15 years ago, but that this “pause” could extend into the 2030s.

But keep in mind, our total Co2 (carbon) emissions is no laughing matter:

Even the IPCC and British Meteorological Office now recognize that average global temperatures haven’t budged in almost 17 years. Little evidence suggests that sea level rise, storms, droughts, polar ice and temperatures or other weather and climate events and trends display any statistically significant difference from what Earth and mankind have experienced over the last 100-plus years…

Besides the Global Warming crowd blaming everything on it (even the violence in the “arab spring“!), its failed predictions about no ice in the north-pole, no more snow in europe, islands drowning, polar bear numbers, and the like… Al Gore’s claims about Hurricanes is [again], laughable, to wit: when you even lose Jeraldo Rivera, your leftist stance may be very laughable:

The first hurricane of the season has formed on or after September 1 only 25 times in the past 161 years. Since the satellite era began in the mid-1960s, there have only been five years without a hurricane by August 31. The last time a hurricane failed to form before September 1 was in 2002 when Hurricane Gustav formed on September 11.

It would be foolish to make fun of anything involving such potentially dangerous storms and it’s also possible we could still see many late developing storms. However, given all the misleading information passed off on the topic by Gore, his allies and a fawning media, hopefully any lack of serious storm activity won’t be buried by the media for political reasons.

Eight tornadoes hit the United States last month, tying the record for the fewest tornadoes in March, according to preliminary data from the Storm Prediction Center.

The last time there were so few tornadoes in March was in 1969, said Greg Carbin, a meteorologist with the prediction center in Norman, Okla. Accurate tornado records began in 1950.

A typical March sees about 80 twisters in the United States, the National Climatic Data Center said.

The only notable outbreak of tornadoes this March was last week, when several twisters formed in Oklahoma and Arkansas, killing one person in Tulsa. That’s the only tornado death this year.

Overall, it’s been a rather quiet year so far for tornadoes, with just 30 hitting the United States. Again, 1969 is the only year that was calmer, when 16 twisters were reported in January, February and March, Carbin said…..

….Figure 1 [top] shows all tornadoes above EF1. (See here, why EF1’s are excluded.) The 10-Year Trend is significantly below the level consistently seen up to 1991, although the high totals in 2011 have inevitably caused a small upwards blip.

We see a similar pattern with the stronger EF3+ tornadoes.

I do not claim to know what will happen to tornado numbers in coming years. And anyone who does is lying.

Senator Rand Paul gives a passionate speech about how congress should send money to Hurricane Harvey survivors but shouldn’t increase the debt to pay for it. Paul makes the case that the US should stop sending money to foreign countries before we pay for our problems. Paul believes Congress continually votes with their hearts and not their heads.

“We wanted to provide help to the people of hurricane Harvey by using the swamp buggies to take supplies to the people that did not leave their homes. We took things like diapers, food, water, baby wipes, etc. We were able to go places that boats and most vehicles could not. HOWEVER, WE WERE NOT ALLOWED TO DO SO.”

Two Illinois men drove 16 hours in an RV hauling two massive buggies to bring aid to people in Vidor, Texas, after Hurricane Harvey and massive flooding devastated the area.

On September 2, Jared Kirkendoll and Scott Green had four people on board their buggy and were bringing them to dry land when their vehicle was stopped by a law enforcement officer.

[….]

One comment from LiveLeak says: “Just leave it to FEMA and this friendly police officer and everything will be okay…”

[…..]

The Vidor Police Association said it has been inundated with messages about the video and that any complaints should be directed to the Orange County Sheriff’s department.

Kirkendoll and Green left Illinois for Texas on August 30. Green posted a picture on Facebook of the two buggies and captioned it: ‘We’re Texas bound!! See If we can go give these folks a hand.’

[…..]

The two men left Texas on Sunday. Green posted on Facebook: ‘Unfortunately it’s that time for us to start heading north. It has been an experience that words can’t even describe. I have never seen so much gratefulness and love in one area before in my life. All the people that we got to help was nothing but thankful for us and let us know it!!!!’

‘It was truly an amazing feeling knowing we were making a difference. Want to thank everyone who gave us a hand and helped when we needed it on this trip as well. It was sad to see so many people loose (sic) everything they had but also heart warming to see everyone pull together and help in anyway they could,’ he continued.

‘Absolutely amazing . We’re tired and smell and been running on Mountain Dew . Buggys (sic) need work.. But all I want to do right now is jump back on the buggy and go find people who need us. God is so good!! Thank you all.’ …

There was a time when Americans were not flying, and hardly any were driving. And the storms were worse.

The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 was the most deadly natural disaster in American history, which led to an estimated 8,000 deaths. Kevin Murnane writing for Forbes notes the many similarities between Galveston and Harvey, including that both were category 4 hurricanes when they hit landfall off the Texas coast. Winds from Galveston were faster, at 145 mph compared with Harvey’s 130 mph, and its height of the storm surge was 15.7 feet, also higher than Harvey.

[…..]

Many media reports blaming climate change for Harvey used Michael E. Mann, a professor at Penn State and author of the controversial global warming “hockey stick” graph, as their source. Mann’s graph was widely used in the late 1990s to connect human activities to global warming.

Mann was later found to have “exaggerated” the impact of global warming in the graph by using “inappropriate methods.”

While careful to say climate change did not directly cause Harvey, the Washington Post said it “exacerbated the storm conditions,” linking to a piece written by Mann in the Guardian, calling it a “fact” that climate change made Harvey worse.

“Human-caused warming is penetrating down into the ocean,” Mann claims. “It’s creating deeper layers of warm water in the Gulf and elsewhere.”

“Harvey was almost certainly more intense than it would have been in the absence of human-caused warming, which means stronger winds, more wind damage and a larger storm surge,” he added.

Mann ignores the fact that the Galveston Hurricane had a storm surge of 15.7 feet, higher than the 7- to 12-feet storm surges seen from Harvey.

Man-made global warming is mainly attributed to carbon emissions, from industry and from transportation. There were only 8,000 vehicles in the entire country in 1900. Only 663 million tons of CO2 were emitted, compared with 5.333 billion today….

See also:

How Climate Change Is Being Blamed For Harvey After A Dozen Years Without A Major Hurricane (WASHINGTON TIMES)

Michael Mann’s claims that Harvey was caused by global warming are destroyed by an operational meteorologist (WUWT)

Take particular note of the four records in Texas:

Galveston 1871 – 3.95” in 15 minutes

Woodward Ranch 1935 – 15.0” in 2 hours

Thrall 1921 – 36.4” in 18 hours

Alvin 1979 – 43” in 24 hours

Storm Harvey never got anywhere near these sort of totals. And we find a very similar picture when we review global records, with the most recent record being as long ago as 1980.

Perhaps a more intriguing question is how did its companion, disturbance 92L, come all the way across the Atlantic in a classic arcing path through Florida and up the East Coast *and fail to develop? What does that tell us?

There is much being made of Harvey and climate change. Meteorologically, as far as the intensity of the storm, let’s see where it ranks among landfalling Category 4 or 5 storms.

It’s tied for 14th. Look at the storm above it, Hazel. Now, let me ask you: Which is the more extreme as far as deviation from normal with pressure, which is a good metric to objectively evaluate how extreme a tropical cyclone is — a storm that hit in mid October in North Carolina, or one that hits on the central Texas Gulf Coast in late August? Let’s also look at Harvey in relation to other hurricanes in Texas. Behind it is the 1915 Galveston hurricane. That is the lesser of the two evils, because of 13th right above Harvey is the 1900 Galveston hurricane that killed 6,000-12,000 people. And right above that one is the Freeport hurricane of 1932. Notice when these are occurring. Then there is the 1916 cyclone in Texas — just a year after the 1915 Galveston hurricane — and Carla in 1961. Again, this all occurred over 50 years ago. Then there is the 1886 Indianola hurricane.Tthey are all hitting in the area that Harvey hit. So the question becomes, if those same storms, almost all stronger, from many years ago hit today, would they be a sign of climate change? Why is Harvey — and not to downplay the storm, but it was one of many and less intense than most — a sign the climate is changing, but these other storms would not be?

[…..]

So if the 1935 Labor Day hurricane — the most powerful storm to be recorded hitting the US, a storm that went from a tropical storm to a Cat 5 in 36 hours — occurs again, why would it be climate change now, but not then?

If the 1938 storm comes back — a storm that took down two billion board feet of trees in New England, had major river floods in western New England, flooded Providence with 13 feet of water in a storm surge, and had a wind gust of 186 mph at blue hill — occurs again, why would it be climate change now, but not then?

[…..]

I can go on and on with countless storms.

The answer: It is nature doing what nature does. And coming out after the storm and claiming it’s something else reveals either ignorance of the past or, if you do know, an agenda based on deception. If I saw the people commenting on this now making a preseason forecast, or even five days before when the obsession was the eclipse, then perhaps I would be more open to those ideas. But telling people why after the what is Monday morning agenda-based quarterbacking. Perhaps that is the lesson of Harvey.